


Eat, Drink, Laugh

by Evil_Knitter (Nichneven13)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hamburgers, Jokes, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-03
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-29 19:59:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5140670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nichneven13/pseuds/Evil_Knitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is tired of Cas being… Cas-like. He wants to teach the poor guy how to do stuff—like eat a darn hamburger. And tell a bad joke.</p><p>Gift fic for alwaysawkward on LJ in 2011.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eat, Drink, Laugh

There was something about Castiel that bothered Dean Winchester. He’d known the angel for years, and honestly, there’d always been something about the guy—angel—whatever—that bothered him. It wasn’t one thing Dean could point to and go “hey, I don’t like that”. It was more a feeling and a general not-rightness that weighed heavily around his neck, like a damn albatross.  
  
What it was… was the way that Castiel, you know…  _was_.  
  
He hadn’t mastered human facial expressions. He couldn’t turn an idiomatic phrase to save his preternatural ass. He didn’t understand why Ghostbusters is the best movie ever made. He wouldn’t stop flitting from place to place with a thought even though they had a perfectly awesome car and kick ass music that was guaranteed to make any journey a hell of a lot more entertaining than poofing away.   
  
And sometimes, he just sat and watched. It was more than sometimes. The guy liked to just  _sit_  and  _stare_  at nothing for hours. It would’ve been all right if he zoned out in front of a Lifetime movie marathon or whatever the jerk would watch if he bothered developing any opinion on TV programming.  
  
He ignored waitresses of all persuasions—even when they were smokin’ hot and easier than popping a tick. He always ate like it’s a chore. And that right there? Yeah, Dean thinks,  _that_  was the big one, or at least one of the big ones. Watching the dude eat a burger a few nights prior had made him (okay, had  _almost_  made him) lose his appetite. It had been all delicate bites and wiped fingers without even one moan of delight.  
  
The digital clock by the bed was partially broken. Its red numbers were only half visible, so it was either seven o’clock or three o’clock. The sun was already down, so Dean assumed it’s seven. Which would explain why his stomach growled like a bitch. Sam had gone on a reconnaissance mission, and really, the more time RoboSam kept out of Dean’s hair, the better.  
  
“Okay, Cas,” Dean said, breaking the interminable silence they’d endured for well on three hours. “Dinner time. And if you say you’re not hungry, I’m going to rearrange your face.”  
  
“I like my face the way it is,” Cas said, touching his fingers to his cheekbone. His face remained impassive, although his eyebrows did that funny little come together thing that always meant the guy was puzzled. “You don’t have the power to rearrange it, Dean. You… oh. Oh, you meant you will punch me, thereby causing my features to shift as my occipital bones break. Is that correct?”  
  
Dean laughed because there was just something about hearing Cas finally  _get_  something that made him happy. All of his hard work was paying off. He’d spent _hours_  trying to catch Cas up on life. It wasn’t like he wasn’t smart. The guy was an encyclopedia of knowledge and could speak every language ever created—including Elvish and Klingon, which was wrong on a few levels. So the fact that Cas couldn’t get things like the epic awesomeness of worn out jeans and tits was unfathomable.  
  
Unless.  
  
Unless Cas was just fuckin’ with him. Which would be… something.  
  
“Come on,” Dean said, tossing his friend a thick coat. “I’m starving. And tonight I’m teaching you how to eat like a human.”  
  
“I prefer my own coat,” Cas said as he dodged the coat Dean sent sailing through the air. “And I know how to eat like a human.”  
  
“It’s damn near freezing, Cas,” Dean said with a roll of his eyes. See, that’s what he meant. Cas didn’t understand that his grubby tan trench coat was not only ugly, but also wildly inappropriate in the middle of a Minnesotan winter. “You’ll look like an idiot if you go out in what you’ve got on. In fact, hold up. You’re not going out with me wearing dress shoes.”  
  
Cas rolled his eyes up to the left and then back down the same way, not quite recreating Dean’s own roll. It seemed to fit Cas’s not-quite-right and not-quite-wrong state of being.   
  
“Here, put these on,” Dean said as he tossed a pair of jeans and long sleeve Henley at his clueless friend. “I think my spare boots will fit you good enough for dinner.”  
  
With a great heaving sigh, Cas put the clothes on—with nothing more than a blink of his eyes. Dean looked beyond the obvious freakiness that the angel just mojo-changed in front of him, and was relieved that the clothes weren’t too baggy on the angel. Hell, he even looked… kind of good. Whatever.  
  
“Come on,” Dean snapped, too angry at nothing to notice that Cas still had on his dress shoes.  
  
**  
  
They drove to Paul’s Pail at the far end of town, bypassing several TGIFriday’s and Biggerson’s along the way. It was a well-known fact amongst burger aficionados that truly great moments in burger history always went down at places like Paul’s Pail. It’s establishments like Paul’s that have been cited a dozen times or more by the Health Department, but refuse to change their ways. Patrons looking for burger nirvana were rarely put off by pesky State investigations into tainted seafood or Hepatitis C. Don’t have the surf and turf—always sound logic when more than one menu item was misspelled… Chinese restaurants notwithstanding—and you’re golden.  
  
Dean pressed his elbows to the table top, always mindful not to touch the surface with his bare skin, at least not until he had enough whiskey in his bloodstream to kill the inevitable parade of germs. He grinned at Cas, already anticipating the greasy masterpiece awaiting them.  
  
“What’ll you have?” the haggard-looking waitress asked without ever lifting her eyes from her order pad. Ah well, not all waitresses are hot, or as in this case, doable.  
  
“Bacon cheeseburger fries and the coldest beer you’ve got on tap,” Dean said, shooting the woman a broad smile because, hey, Dean Winchester never discriminated. “Two of each, sweetheart.”  
  
After she sidled away—with a discernible limp, Dean noted—Cas touched the table with two of his fingers. Before Dean could yelp out a warning about the danger of bacteria and Funk with a capital F, the table changed before his eyes. What was with Cas putting his mojoing skills on display?  
  
Gone were the thick layers of grim and aged nicotine. Vanished were the deep scratches and cracks on the surface. Left behind was a smooth and shiny table that stood out as the exception in the room filled with thirty-year-old tables.  
  
“Dude!” Dean hissed, keeping his voice low. “What’d you do that for?”  
  
“I did not want you to become ill,” Cas said, unfurling his paper napkin and smoothing it over his lap. “There were many lower levels of life inhabiting this table. I smote them.”  
  
“You… smote them?” Dean asked with an eyebrow flourish. “Jesus, Cas. You can’t do that! The dirt, man, it’s part of the experience.”  
  
“I did not smite the dirt,” Cas assured him. “I merely sent it away. But the flesh-eating virus, the streptococcus and the sperm… those I smote. I suppose I shouldn’t have smote the sperm, but it was at the end of its life cycle since it was not likely to find an egg on this table.”  
  
Dean glanced at the gleaming table. He had to admit, he was pretty okay with Cas eradicating the flesh-eating virus, but most especially the sperm. He was one hundred percent in favor of sex on tables, but come on people, do the world a solid and sanitize!  
  
“Hang on,” Dean said, pointedly touching the table with his hands. “You can  _see_  the germs?”  
  
“Yes,” Cas nodded and his lips curled like he was almost smiling. “I see them as clearly as I see you.”  
  
“Are they as hot as me?” Dean teased with a wink and a smile.  
  
“No,” Cas said adamantly. “Their core temperature is significantly lower than yours.”  
  
“My—” Dean barked out a surprised laugh. “I meant—”  
  
“I understood you,” Cas said. He turned his attention to the waitress who paused in placing the beers and ketchup on the table. “I was making a joke.”  
  
“Did you boys do something to this table?” the waitress—Lola according to her nametag—asked. She ran her finger along the edge, trying to remember if it had always looked that pristine.  
  
“Just wiped it down with lemon juice,” Dean said with a pointed look at the angel. He was gratified that Cas took the hint and mojoed a lemon-shaped bottle of lemon juice and a rag into existence. Seriously, Cas was just like that Staples’ Easy Button; he loved it. “My friend’s a little germphobic. Makes him feel better.”  
  
“It does,” Cas agreed.  
  
“Well,” Lola volleyed her glance between the two men, but really, what harm was a little elbow grease from customers? “All right then. Your order’ll be up in a sec.”  
  
“You made a joke?” Dean asked as soon as Lola drifted away. “Since when do you make jokes?”  
  
Cas shrugged with only his left shoulder and picked up his draft beer. He took a healthy draw and made a satisfied sound. “That’s good.”  
  
“You like beer now?” Dean asked after taking his own sip. There was something about the way Cas looked at him—like he’d finally popped the lock on a tricky pair of handcuffs—that made him clear his throat and look away. Something had changed; a switch had been flipped.  
  
“Yes,” was the answer that came several seconds after a normal human would’ve replied. And that right there was another thing about Cas that made Dean… something. The brevity of his answers with no extra information was par for the course, but that night, Cas broke tradition. “You think I am without emotion or intelligence.”  
  
“I never said that,” Dean objected at once, latching onto the word he could process and deal with without too much fanfare. “I know you’re smart.”  
  
“Yes, I am,” Cas said. “And I have emotions, too, but I see no reason to display them before everyone I meet.”  
  
“Huh,” Dean said. Lola was back, unloading her tray with their food without comment, although her eyes stared at the table without blinking.   
  
“This looks delicious,” Cas said and picked up his burger. Dean watched him take the first bite. Two chews in, Cas closed his eyes and hummed in the back of his throat. “Fantastic.”  
  
“You enjoy food?” Dean asked, letting his exasperation show.   
  
“Of course.”  
  
“Of course, he says,” Dean grumbled. The angel had been playing him this whole time. He didn’t need Dean’s direction on anything. “So why don’t you ever  _show_ any emotions?”  
  
“Feelings can render me incapacitated,” Cas explained, licking mustard from his fingers. “I do not want my enemies to know I care for humanity, or take joy in life on Earth. Should they ever discover that fact, they would use that knowledge to manipulate me. You are the only one I share my emotions with.”  
  
“Generally anger,” Dean pointed out with a grin.  
  
“You tend to bring that out in me,” Cas laughed, and it sounded like he should always laugh.  
  
“But when we’re with Sam and Bobby,” Dean shook his head, trying to understand. “They are not enemies.”  
  
“Bobby was possessed once,” Cas said, his eyebrows pulling low. “And Sam has no soul. They would betray me if they were compromised.”  
  
Dean toyed with his glass as he considered what the angel was saying. There was, of course, a flaw in Cas’s logic. Dean had been to Hell; he’d tortured souls. And yet, there sat Cas, letting his emotions flap in the wind.  
  
“I could turn on you.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“No?”  
  
“ _No_ ,” Cas said and leaned forward until his chest hit the ledge of the table. “You are different.”  
  
“Whatever,” Dean shifted and picked up his drink; he still hadn’t touched his burger. That was enough sharing—and thinking—for one night. “So, Funny Man, tell me a joke.”  
  
“I just heard one from Joshua,” Cas said, his eyes dancing. “A man walked into a bar.”  
  
Dean nodded in approval. He loved a good A Man Walked Into A Bar joke.  
  
“He said…” Cas continued with a huge grin. “ _Ouch_!”  
  
“Awww man,” Dean laughed but shook his head. Figures Joshua would like that sort of lame-o joke. “That sucked.”  
  
“Fine, your turn.”  
  
“Okay, okay, I’ve got one,” Dean wiped his fingers on his jeans and leaned forward, matching Cas’s position. “Why did the monkey fall from the tree?”  
  
Cas shrugged and shook his head, inviting the punchline.  
  
“Because he was  _dead_.”  
  
“That’s horrible!” Cas said but chuckled.   
  
“Why did the second monkey fall from the tree?” Dean asked in follow up, his smile growing larger with each second.  
  
“He was dead as well?” Cas guessed.  
  
“No,” Dean shook his head and leaned a little closer. “Because he was  _stapled to the first monkey_!”  
  
Cas blinked three times in quick succession. His mouth slowly opened and Dean thought he might be on the verge of being bitched out for animal cruelty when finally--  _finally_ \-- Cas started to laugh. He slapped the table with the palms of his hands and pushed himself away. His head fell back and let his laugh rolled from his belly and out of his mouth, loud and unaffected in a way Dean had never heard before.   
  
So he hadn’t gotten the opportunity to teach Cas anything. It was okay, because that laugh right there? There was something about it that made Dean… something. Something good.  
  
  
THE END


End file.
